Animals | Science News for Students

Animals

a composite image of a midge jumping

Never mind the absence of legs. A young gall midge, no bigger than a rice grain, can go airborne thanks to some clever latching.

G.M. Farley et al/Journal of Experimental Biology 2019

Animals
 
Sep 18, 2019
High-speed camera reveals the secrets of a legless larva’s leap
maze corals with lesions from a new coral disease

Maze corals on Flat Cay reef near St. Thomas in the U.S. Virgin Islands. Lesions expose the corals’ stark white skeleton. A deadly new disease is to blame — and it's spreading through the Caribbean.

M. Brandt

Animals
 
Aug 29, 2019
Mystery disease is killing Caribbean corals
a photo of one cat licking another cat

Most cat allergies are triggered by a protein called Fel d1. It’s carried in cats’ saliva. New research aims to disable the protein at its source.

SunRay BRI Cattery RU/iStock/Getty Images Plus

Animals
 
Aug 14, 2019
Giving cats a special food may one day help people with cat allergies
two Microdocodon gracilis fossils side by side

The shrew-sized early mammal relative Microdocodon gracilis lived about 165 million years ago. Its fossil reveals that the shape of a flexible bone structure called a hyoid that aids in chewing and is similar to that of modern mammals.

Z.-X. Luo/Univ. of Chicago

Fossils
 
Aug 13, 2019
A flexible bone that aids mammals in chewing arose during the Jurassic
modern crocodile

Today’s primarily meat-eating crocodiles have simple, cone-shaped choppers. But some of their ancient kin had more complex teeth, suggesting they ate plants.

Paul Cools/iNaturalist (CC BY-NC 4.0)

Animals
 
Jul 29, 2019
Ancient crocodiles may have preferred chomping plants, not meat
bat wings

This bat is being treated with antifungal bacteria. A new study finds the applied germs appear to fight a fungus that’s been killing millions of North American bats.

USFWS/SUE CAMERON/FLICKR (CC BY 2.0)

Algae & Fungi
 
Jul 26, 2019
New treatment offers hope for bats battling white nose syndrome
right whales

A southern right whale and her calf travel together. Where the threat of predators is high, new data show a mom and her young may effectively whisper.

nattrass/E+/Getty Images

Animals
 
Jul 23, 2019
Some mama whales may whisper to keep calves safe from orcas
a close up photo of a mosquito with a red no symbol covering the mosquito

A new tactic swats at malaria by infecting the disease-carrying mosquitoes with a toxic fungus.

noipornpan/iStock/Getty Images Plus

Health
 
Jul 12, 2019
A fungus plus a spider toxin equals a weapon to kill mosquitoes
a bat hanging on a tree

Since the 1950s, bats and other wild animals have replaced dogs as the major U.S. source of human deaths from rabies.

ADAMDV18/Encyclopedia of Life (CC-BY-NC-4.0)

Health
 
Jul 3, 2019
Bats are now the primary source of U.S. rabies deaths
a photo of an orange toad, Incilius periglenes, on a green leaf

The golden toad Incilius periglenes was once abundant in the cloud forests of Central America. Its last recorded sighting was May 15, 1989.

Papa Lima Whiskey/Wikimedia Commons

Ecology
 
Jun 19, 2019
A million species could vanish, and people are to blame